Every daily paper should employ a set of unyielding skeptics churning out columns that force readers to react--and to anticipate the next round. Too bad The Dallas Morning News runs so many tepid columns and soggy editorials. Only Mr. Dallas possesses the weaponry of a great columnist, and he's allowed only the occasional piece about nightlife. Few writers can lambast a bar or new fad in so few subtle, sharp and tightly crafted words as the bespectacled curmudgeon. Advising middle-aged men on the art of hooking up, he warns that "silence can be golden, but shoes never shut up." A few years ago he divided nightlife denizens into "scissor girls," "investment bikers," "torso boys," "Prada people" and so on. Mr. Dallas never becomes enamored with bars and babes and booze and all the stuff that most people find exciting about the night.